FAQ for Expansion of Public Medical Education

 

What is the goal of the plan?

The goal is to ensure the health and well being of Georgians by producing an appropriate physician workforce to meet current and future health care needs. With full implementation of this plan, the Medical College of Georgia, through its partnerships, could expand to 1,200 students by 2020, from its current level of 745, an increase of some 60 percent, addressing a critical need for more physicians in Georgia.

What is the core of the plan?

The plan involves a strategy, representing the most viable and affordable option to expand public medical student education within a stipulated time frame.

Medical education would significantly expand in Augusta and MCG would develop and operate a new regional four-year program in Athens in partnership with the University of Georgia.

MCG School of Medicine’s Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus, based at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, and new southeast clinical campus based at St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System in Savannah will expand as residential clinical campuses for 3rd and 4th year students. Other communities throughout the state would benefit as well from stronger community health programs, and expanded medical education and residency training programs with community hospitals.

Additionally, the partnerships would expand the state’s medical research capabilities and the economic impact that comes from fresh research dollars from outside of Georgia and future commercialization of research discoveries.
By meeting this fundamental need, there are additional benefits of doubling the total economic impact of public medical education in Georgia to $3.2 billion and creation of 10,000 medically-related jobs by 2020 throughout the state.

How many new medical students will be educated under the proposed plan and where will they be educated?

The Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine would expand its class size in Augusta to 240 students per year by 2015, an increase of 26 percent over the school’s current class of 190 students. In total, MCG will have 300 medical students per class by 2020, an increase of 60 percent over its present student enrollment of 744 students. By 2020, the MCG School of Medicine’s total enrollment will increase to 1,200 students -- 960 medical students in Augusta with 60 of those students spending their third and fourth years in Albany or Savannah at MCG’s clinical campuses and 240 medical students at the Athens campus.

Why not just expand in Augusta?

No medical school in the United States has a class size of 240 students per year in one location with a single primary teaching hospital in its academic health system, according to Tripp Umbach.
MCG’s recent increase from 180 to 190 students in the entering medical school class – and the previously announced increase to 200 in the fall of 2009 – will fully utilize existing facility, faculty, and clinical teaching capacity in Augusta. Expanding to 240 students in Augusta will involve significant physical requirements such as acquiring additional land and constructing a new medical education facility. Furthermore, a class of 240 medical students will require increasingly active partnerships with University Hospital, the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and other hospitals in the Augusta region.

Even with dynamic new partnerships, there are not enough physicians or patients in the Augusta region to provide quality training experience to more than 240 students.

What will happen in Athens?

The partnership between MCG School of Medicine and the Athens medical community will be established for an estimated 40 first-year students beginning as early as fall 2009 and no later than fall 2010. The campus will provide medical student education to 60 students per year throughout all four years of medical school by 2020.

What is the situation with the Navy Supply Corps School?

In the fall of 2007, the Athens Local Redevelopment Authority recommended that a health sciences campus to include medical education would be the best use of for the 58-acre Navy Supply Corps School property. The facility is expected to be transferred from the federal government to University System of Georgia by 2011.

Is the MCG School of Medicine campus in Athens dependent on the Navy site?

The closure of the Navy Supply School provides a potential opportunity to secure clinical teaching facilities with excellent proximity to two major hospitals and classroom facilities that would meet preclinical teaching needs. But other alternatives remain. Tripp Umbach is recommending that an initial facility be developed on or adjacent to the University of Georgia which will house medical students no later than 2010. That facility will be used as a biomedical research facility for MCG/UGA faculty after the educational program moves to the Navy school site after 2012.

Will medical education expand to locations outside of Athens and Augusta?

Yes. The MCG School of Medicine established the Southwest Georgia Clinical Campus in fall 2005 with Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany as the base. A similar two-year clinical campus is southeast Georgia, based at St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System in Savannah, is under development.

Additional clinical relationships need to be developed with hospital and physician practices statewide in order to provide high-quality training for 1,200 medical students by 2020.

It is conceivable that additional campuses for 3rd and 4th year medical schools could be developed in other sites after 2020. The report recommends clinical relationships be developed in Rome, Columbus, Brunswick, and Valdosta.